Link Actions like this are "worthy" of the Brownshirts. My deepest respect to Eugene and his family for standing their ground.

One of the most infamous incidents in the history of the House of Commons occured in 1972 during a debate about the murder of 14 civilians in Derry by the British army - Bloody Sunday. At one point Bernadette Devlin, who had witnessed the slaughter first-hand, rose from her seat, strode across the august chamber and punched home secretary Reggie Maudling in the mouth. Predictably this caused uproar. While Devlin's action was certainly "un-parliamentary", no one got seriously hurt that day...

Prediction, like alcohol, makes fools of us all, so here goes: 1. Iraq The elections will be held in most of the country and then guess what? The violence will go on. The country will descend even deeper into anarchy and despair. At some stage this year it is possible that the American public will reach a tipping point when a majority realise that, for everyone's sake, their troops have to leave. It is at this point that one should expect the US right to start thrashing around...

You know how it is. You're compiling your Christmas card list when the name of an old friend springs to mind. You're unsure whether or not said old pal should receive a card. You were thick as thieves once, but that was long ago. Would sending a card now make up for all that time or would it just serve to highlight the distance that has grown between you? It's a tough one, no doubt. As for us mere mortals, so for The Most Powerful Man On Earth, Gerorge W Bush. The US President has spent th...

Public protest is a vital part of any true democracy. When people are angry about something, it's right and healthy that they should take to the streets to voice their unhappiness. To the thousnads of British citizens who have protested, and who continue to protest, against their government's insane support for Bush's war in Iraq, I say "more power to you." But protest is not enough. Another sign of a healthy democracy is the ability to address the concerns of protestors within the politic...

"Remember that when Arafat was still regarded as a superterrorist...the Israelis encouraged the Hamas to build mosques and social institutions in Gaza. Hamas and the Israelis had very close relations when the PLO was still in exile in Tunisia. I can remember being in southern Lebanon in 1993 reporting on the Hamas, and one of their militants offered me Shimon Peres' home phone number. That's how close the relations were!" Robert Fisk, April 2002 In the 1970s and 80s, Israel, like m...

One of the most popular myths in the corridors of power in Tel Aviv and Washington is the notion that the Israeli/Palestinian conflcict could be solved easily were it not for the obstructionism of Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat. If nothing else, Arafat's imminent death will soon show this belief to be a fiction. It is of course convenient for Bush and Sharon to place all the blame for the conflict at Arafat's door, since it absolves them and their countries from any responsibility f...

So much of life in the occupied West Bank seems to revolve around the management of boredom. Life under occupation involves dealing with a number of delays to your every day life, whether queueing at a checkpoint or sitting around waiting for the latest closure to be lifted. The sheer tedium of Palestinian life is the only part which an outsider can fully experience. Three years ago I was sitting in a school in the city of Nablus, watching hour after hour tick by, waiting for the latest c...

I heard someone (can't remember who) making a good point about the US presidential debates. The person in question piointed that Bush and Kerry's exchange on the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq had a Freudian undertone. The Democratic nominee took great pleasure in pointing out that "this president's father" assembled a much more impressive cast for his production "Gulf War 1" than the current occupant of the White House had managed for the sequel. Bush 43 bridled at this suggestion th...

Along with most of the planet's population, I am not enthused by John Kerry. He is hardly an exciting politician, not the type whose rhetorical flights of fancy make the heart beat a little faster. What's more, on a ideologicla level, he would not have been my choice as Democratic presidential nominee (I much prefered that angry doctor from Vermont). I have been critical of the man from Boston in the past, largely because I believe he voted for the Iraq war in late 2002 because he thought...

The equation, film plus Northern Ireland, has not usually equalled accuracy. Some of the cinematic offerings on Ulster have been laughably wide of the mark. One notable exception to this trend is the excellent In The Name Of The Father , the story of the Guilford Four who were wrongly imprisoned for a bombing in England in the early 70s. The scene were Daniel Day-Lewis' character is dragged away for the first time by the British army is particularly poignant. "No", protests Pete Poselthwaite...

A few weeks ago I considered writing a blog asserting, some two months from polling day, that George W Bush was certain to win the US presdential election. I like to make bold predictions. When they don't come off, they make you look like a fool, but when they do, it's a marvellous excuse to be smug. I'm glad though that I was retcicent in this case. After two good debates by Kerry, it has dawned on me that I might just be seing his face on the news every day for the next four years. Pri...

I enjoy reading the work of those with whom I fundamentally disagree. I've just finished Yoram Hazony's "The Struggle for Israel's Soul", an impassioned defense of the tenets of traditional Zionism. I always enjoy Stephen King's articles and the thoughts of Pat Buchanan. I find that reading things from the opposite side of the political spectrum helps to take me out of my intellectuial comfort zone, that it improves my mental rigour to think "why is this worng?" When I picked up a copy of...

The current intifada in the West Bank and Gaza is now four years old. Forty-eight months in to this uprising, it is clear that, by any measure, it has been a disaster for the Palestinians. Militarily, Israel has inflicted three times as many casualties on the Palestinians as the Palestinians have on Israel. In the past few years, suicide bombers have found it much harder to get through Israel's elaborate security apparatus to wreak haovc in Israel's cities. Economically, the intifada may have...

As a child growing up in Belfast in the 1980s and 90s, I was conscious that many of those in positions of authority were English. At the time Northern Ireland was run by a Secretary of State, a member of the British cabinet. These men tended to be plummy and somewhat useless Conservative MPs, marking time in one of Britsh politics least sought after positions. The soldiers who patrolled the streets and manned the checkpoints were also English, as were most of the people on T.V., who provided ...